


Bounty

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Other, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 16:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19480087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: But it is Tatsuya's find, and he has every right to let pride drip from his presence like condensation from a glass of water on a particularly humid day.





	Bounty

**Author's Note:**

> for clo
> 
> prompt was long ago in a galaxy far, far away

Taiga is asleep when they touch down on Jedha, in the outskirts of the holy city. The temple rises from the sand, far more impressive in its surroundings than the one on Coruscant, lost within thousands of years of architectural trends and buildings made to defy physics. Alex leans over the ship’s controls, tilts her head so she can see properly out of the windshield. The sun is bright in the sky; it should be late in the evening back home. Not so bad, depending on how long a day is here. She keys the information into her datapad, leans back in the seat, and begins to go over the files.

She’s most of the way through her review when Taiga begins to stir, becoming aware of his cramped position in the ship’s bed made for someone much smaller than either of them (they’d tried, unsuccessfully, to squeeze in together briefly while the ship was on autopilot, but they couldn’t really manage it for more than a few seconds). He stretches and shakes out his limbs, his presence in the Force settling like ice on the surface of a drink, and then he yawns. Cute.

In a minute or so, he’ll get up and sit in the copilot’s chair, hold out his hand for the datapad, and repeat the plan back to Alex, refining it between the two of them like they’re distilling vinegar. Alex can’t see the future, but she doesn’t need precognition to know Taiga.

* * *

She doesn’t need precognition to know Tatsuya, either. He’ll show up on a cold planet and help with their Jedi business, regardless of how much he says or thinks he can’t or won’t. There is a part of Alex that wonders if it’s cruel, all the work and no credit or access, letting Tatsuya reach a hand into a world that someone else has decided isn’t his. Is it, even if Tatsuya doesn’t see it that way? (He’s better now at controlling his emotions, but they still bleed through sometimes, and it’s never that.) Or is Alex simply assuaging her own guilt?

Tatsuya catches up with them outside the temple, after they’ve made their visit. He blends in visually but his particular flavor of anticipation is unmissable in the Force. Taiga’s not even looking for Tatsuya (well, no more than he already always does) but he picks up on it instantly, immediately hurrying down the steps toward him. Alex follows behind at her usual pace. Even after Taiga disappears into the crowd it’s not hard to find them, tucked away under a doorway to a boarded-up business establishment. Taiga’s hand is stuck to Tatsuya’s hip, his gaze locked onto Tatsuya’s face, the kind of overflowing attention that, from almost anyone else, Tatsuya would be uncomfortable with. 

“Long time no see,” says Alex.

“Hi,” says Tatsuya. 

He looks good, his face slightly tanned, and what Alex can see of his body under his open coat as it should be. He holds himself with more confidence, or--he’s always been confident in some regards, but it’s as if he’s more comfortable with himself. Something has made him settle into his skin better, not perfectly but he’s much less like a molting snake than he’s ever been before. He takes her hand in his own, cool and soft.

* * *

They could make it out to the ruins in a day if they pushed it, but none of them is in a rush to finish this and split ways, to yank the stem apart and shred the pieces. They set up a camp near a ravine, hidden enough from the wildlife and any locals who might come across them in their brief stay, just a simple tent without even a fire for cooking. They have food and sanitized water enough for now.

Tatsuya pours water down his throat from the canteen, the practiced motion of a desert-dweller used to being unable to spare a splattered drop. He holds it out to Alex when he's done, but she shakes her head, not thirsty yet. The sun casts long shadows on the red sand.

Alex thinks, briefly, of the last time they were all together like this, when Tatsuya had lined up his work to match Taiga's and Alex had tagged along on the mission. They'd been on Pantora, perhaps no colder than this evening here but with the weight of the snow bogging them down and the wind blowing into their faces it had felt worse. Harsher. Still, the way Tatsuya looks at Taiga is the same, the focus in his eye and the slight part of his lips, despite the absence of now in his hair and eyelashes.

He falls asleep with his head in her chest, Taiga's arms wrapped around both of them, the impossibly-best sleep Alex has had in months.

* * *

The ruins loom like caves, no, mountains carved by the winds and long-gone rivers. This close, it's hard to tell they're statues half-sunken in the sand like fossils. It's hard to tell much of anything, given all the energy in the place, how the living Force has stretched and swollen to saturate every corner, every surface crack and carving of the statues, every grain of sand.

She and Taiga are looking for something; they'll know it when they find it. If they find it, because the past five missions here have resulted in nothing, and a master can only send people to follow their gut feelings for so long before something else crops up that needs their attention. Still, she'd like to find it, whatever it is.

They walk the perimeter of the base of one statue, roughly a quarter of the way round, until Taiga pauses.

"That one," he says, decisive, pointing to the next one over. 

Alex closes her eyes and reaches out in the Force, and she can feel Tatsuya do the same. There's definitely something different there, something faint, like scratches on a wooden floor a guilty child has attempted to cover. You can see it if you turn your head to just the right angle, and if you're looking for it.

They turn and head for it, their boots touching the sand in almost perfect unison.

* * *

It is Tatsuya who finds the ancient aurebush script, familiar letters but a language unknown to any of them, carved just above where he can reach on the statue's face. It is Taiga who rubs them with his fingers, traces them onto paper; it is Alex who enters everything into the datapad. But it is Tatsuya's find, and he has every right to let pride drip from his presence like condensation from a glass of water on a particularly humid day.

Pride is not the Jedi thing to feel here, but Tatsuya's no Jedi--and Alex is gladder for it every day.


End file.
